Posts by Tom Semmens
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I'm utterly baffled by the coaching change though.
Two things have to be considered. First of all, it seems the senior players had a near revolt before the last Bledisloe test in Wellington, so Henry and co. have had to make some changes in their style. Secondly, these are the coaches who said they would be judged by their results, when their actions say anything but. Within the context of keeping their arrogance and incomes their number one priority, and keeping the players happy, it all makes perfect sense.
If there is one man who can make a silk purse from a sow's ear it has to be Peter Russell. He should have replaced Hansen this year on his record and be the All Black's coach in 2012, if not earlier.
Guilford could now be ruined by the current coaches, who probably will take a player in the Howlett/Wright tradition and tell him to "bulk up" in the gym. Still we may get two good seasons out of the young fella.
I am disappointed Karl Lowe didn't get the nod, sionce he completely outplayed George Whitelock last week, dispite the fact Whitelock was in a pack full of All Blacks and should have had an armchair ride.
Dunno much about Ben Smith. One hopes he doesn't turn out like the other "kick and hope" special projects this panel like to toy with.
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27-20
We were robbed!Were we what! They needed ten All Blacks, a forward pass that led to McCaw's try and a blind touch judge to sneak past us. I hear the good Lord himself expressed his displeasure with an earthquake shortly after the game.
The crowd was fantastic as well! Real rugby, and I can't get enough of it.
I predict the NZRFU is going to get a helluva shock come February. I note their crowds in Cunterbury are down over 30% on last year, on top of a million dollar loss - a trend repeated across all the Super Unions.
These super unions are the same ones who have railroaded the change in the ANZC from 14 to 10 teams, and these same five unions clearly - if their on field performances are to be any guide - see the ANZC as an annoying diversion that simply threatens their entrenched status.
These same five unions will contribute half the teams to the new ANZC next year.
On the other hand, the ANZC has been a roaring success everywhere else this year with crowds and TV audiences up a giddying 50% and general agreement that the competition has captured the public imagination and the standard is well up on previous years - with, once again, the exception of the Super unions where crowds are DOWN on last year.
In the Super unions the audience is clearly over-exposed to to much rugby and has switched off.
So here is my hoped for 2010 outcome for the NZRFU:
Come February no one turns up for Super games. The Super unions play in half empty, half built stadiums and no one is much interested until well towards the finals. I think that the public's interest in the ANZC vis-a-vis the Super 14 shows the punters are voting with their feet, so this is a distinct possibility, and the NZRFU won't be able to say they weren't warned because the 2009 Super 14 was poorly atttended.
Then, come ANZC time the vibrancy of this year falls flat as the five Super unions - i.e. at least half the games in any one round - are played in empty super-union stadiums with no atmosphere.
In other words, BOTH of their competitions could end up being fucked in 2010 as a result of their own stupidity.
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Actually, the olympics *are* supposed to be about taking part. :-)
If you believe that then meet my friend, he heads the Central Investment Bank of Nigeria, don't you know!
legbreak, it isn't that we won't win the FINAL that gets on my goat. It is the mediocrity of those who think just turning up is an achievement. maybe if we had an expectation of qualifying from our group then yeah, it would be an exciting time because anything can happen in the knockout stages. But no, we are meant to be pleased because they get to march in opening ceremony. Look at the sort of mighty teams who the All Whites played on this "journey".
Vanuatu
Tahiti
Fiji
New Caledonia
Solomon Islandsand now Bahrain.
Lobbying FIFA to rig the qualifiers so we play micro-states from the third world is nothing to be proud of. How can we pretend to stand in the company of Slovakia, who qualified today for the first time by beating Poland away? Could we defeat Poland home and away? Could we win a qualifying tournament with Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia in it? If FIFA were to change the Oceania Group again so, say, Chile and Mexico were in it we wouldn't have a shit show of making the tournament. Yet that is what should happen, so we can be proud of a real, earnt achievement.
The idea of wild celebrations at just qualifying against the sort of opposition we've played is something that I find, well, Un-New Zealand in it's decided averageness. It might suit the Brits who love the game out here, but they have expectations born in a country whose class system and tall poppy press contrive to entrench a small minded mediocrity which we New Zealanders rightly pour scorn on.
I don't believe we have earnt the right to be in South Africa and I think the hype over "qualifying" against Vanuatu, Tahiti, Fij, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Bahrain is just that - complete and utter hype.
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...they are a respectable team from a small country that is actually pretty decent considering they are competing against almost every other country in the world.
Wow! that sounds exciting.
If the the All Whites were well managed and led with a clever long term plan I might say "well, this team will be beaten soundly but we will be back, and next time we'll be better". Then I could understand the joy of achieving a building block to the final rounds of future tournaments. But there is no plan, nor do I believe NZ Soccer has ever had a plan and indeed I doubt they would recognise such a plan if they were ever shown one.
We seem to be celebrating for just getting there, via a path of absolute least resistance. It is a sort of mediocre defeatism that is roundly criticised when we see it in people who get sent to the Olympics, yet when it comes to the Soccer World Cup we are meant to be all pleased for them.
New Zealanders celebrate winners, not qualifiers. Anything else is for losers.
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@Richard Aston: I don't think there is that much wrong with the format, and I am not a supporter of relying on a web feed of opinion for "news" as a substitute for journalists investigating stories, which is what such feeds inevitably become.
I think the incessant repetition of the same stories is probably an outward sign of their lack of budget, but I would rather see the demise of, say, Concert FM than a further degredation of the only island of in depth news and current affairs left in our fair land.
But maybe it is time for them to have a good look at both of their presenters. Mary Wilson and Brent Edwards would make a brilliant team on Morning Report IMHO.
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Just as an aside, I am increasingly finding that Morning Report is not really worth listening to.
Geoff Robinson has been really, really poor lately, and seems to be getting worse. Memo to to Geoff: Ralda Familton style advertorials are twenty-five years out of date, and were only used for selling cosmetics on the morning ZB show anyway (which isn't a criticism of Ralda, her marvellous voice takes me instantly back to my early childhood).
Sean Plukett's blustering and bullying is ever more frequently on display, with less and less lucid moments - his shouting down of Karl Anderson this morning but one example.
I think Morning Report is well past its due by date in its current format and interviewers, and needs a good shake up.
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Wow, you seem, somehow... invested.
Hehehe Haydn DID start with
I'm quite grumpy writing this.
It would have been rude not to stay in theme.
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Bahrain, who'll be coming to Wellington for the biggest sports event here since… the first Rugby World Cup? The Auckland Commonwealth Games? The America's Cup?
Dude, the first round was a 0-0 draw. That is really the sort of result that sets the world on fire. Soccer is as dull as dishwater at the best of times and when played between two Z-list outfits like N.Z. and Bahrain doubly, triply, quadruply, awfully so.
And what will happen if we qualify anyway? We'll have to put up with annoying Poms coming out of the woodwork to comment in their every-so-dreary and irritating working class accents (no one with a nice RP accent would bother) about the superiority of the "beautiful game". They will repeatably and smugly tell us that soccer is the most popular game in the world, as if that makes a jot of difference to anything.
The All Whites will go the world cup, where they will be exposed as a bunch of plodders, outclassed charlatans who qualified via the weakest of weak competitions.
The All Whites will not come even close to winning a game and we'll all be expected to celebrate like we've won lotto if we manage to score a goal. Whoop-de-shit. Selling out the caketin only goes to prove that there is embarassingly little to do in Wellington on most weekends.
Next.
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Half the time with Sky commentary you get the feeling they'd rather be somewhere else.
Radio Sport isn't immune either - I've sick and tired of listening to the guy who does Aucklands home games whining about how boring the game is and never missing a chance to to complain about the weather, the size of the crowd, the complexity of the rules or anything else his miserable mind can come up with.
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Has anybody got an information on what message the Lincoln students intended to convey ?
They are all big Formula 1 fans?